Ankr Network

[Short general description]: Cloud Computing is projected to be a trillion dollar market, yet it is monopolized by some of the largest tech conglomerates in the world. Only these giants can afford the high human capital cost and upfront server costs, but this only results in a higher margin for customers. Current Cloud Computing platforms lack incentives model for people to contribute their resources. Ankr strives to build a resource efficient blockchain framework that truly enables Distributed Cloud Computing (DCC) and provides user-friendly infrastucture for business applications. There are indeed existing cloud solutions, but Ankr is the first one to leverage both blockchain and trusted hardware. Mass adoption of trusted hardware not only brings opportunities to cloud security but also a distributed computing platform.

[Main problems tackled]: Ankr is aiming to bridge the gap between the real world and the blockchain. The Ankr's permissionless blockchain framework can support an ecosystem of decentralized autonomous applications. We envision that these applications include global P2P payment system, personal credit system, and most importantly, tokenization of real-world assets that were once illiquid (sublease rental contract, real estate ownership, art piece, wine, etc.).

[Main contribution proposal]: Ankr Network proposes a novel blockchain solution that addresses the current barrier to mass business adoption:

- Resource-efficient mining scheme based on Proof of Useful Work (PoUW) Consensus Protocol

- Proof of Useful Work: The Proof of Useful Work (PoUW) consensus enables a self-sustainable blockchain framework. Instead of wasting electricity and computing power on hashes like Bitcoin does, PoUW uses these resources towards useful work tasks provided by enterprises and consumers. The protocol runs on SGX-enabled CPUs with remote attestation to ensure security and confidentiality. The novel PoUW approach unlocks the massive potential of idle computing power around the world by providing enough incentives: in this scheme, every computation contributor gets compensated, and some will get the extra reward for generating the blocks. In the future, this mining scheme can promote Universal Basic Income (UBI).

- Oracle Service: The integrated Oracle Service provides authenticated data feed by leveraging both cryptographic primitives and the trusted execution environment (TEE). Through a standardized API to port data from existing websites, Oracle Service enables simple real-world business adoption.

- Multi-chain Structure: The Multi-chain Plasma implementation allows different applications to handle application-specific smart contracts on individual side chains, preventing transactions from overloading the PoUW-based main chain. The main chain will provide a native authenticated data feed service for off-chain data to relay to each child chain. Existing business can build decentralized autonomous applications on the child chain with powerful computing power and native data feed service provided by the main chain.